{"id":157214,"date":"2026-04-27T16:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=157214"},"modified":"2026-04-27T16:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:58:22","slug":"behind-the-scenes-of-the-whitebit-and-fc-barcelona-partnership-one-day-i-will-remember-for-a-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=157214","title":{"rendered":"Behind the scenes of the WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona partnership: one day I will remember for a long\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes of the WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona partnership: one day I will remember for a long\u00a0time<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Recently, I launched a series of posts One Day in the Life of a CMO<\/a> on my LinkedIn, where I will talk about what work at this level actually looks like, without gloss, without pre-written phrases about synergy, and without the corporate picture everyone is used to seeing in official announcements. Today I want to dedicate the first edition to how we extended the <\/strong>partnership<\/strong><\/a> between WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona for another five years, until\u00a02030.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A morning that didn\u2019t start with\u00a0coffee<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When an official announcement about a major partnership comes out, most people see the final picture: two logos side by side, beautiful photos, neat comments from the press office. Everything looks smooth, precise, and planned down to the smallest detail. Reality usually looks different.<\/p>\n

My morning started with the fact that I couldn\u2019t find my\u00a0jacket.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work in an IT company where a hoodie is practically the dress code, but for a meeting of this level appearance matters. Then it turned out that our plane tickets had been canceled, and we went to Barcelona by car. And on that road, between conversations and silence, you understand especially clearly one simple\u00a0thing:<\/p>\n

everything people see in the final announcement is twenty minutes of enormous work that lasted almost a\u00a0year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why deals like this don\u2019t happen\u00a0quickly<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In partnerships at this level, price is only the entry point into the conversation, not its content. The real question always sounds different: is the partner ready to be not just a sponsoring side, but a real partner who shares your goals and is ready to build something together further? <\/strong>That question defines everything.<\/p>\n

At this level, it\u2019s not the one who pushes harder on the terms who wins, but the one who knows how to build dialogue diplomatically, hear the other side, and find points where interests truly align, not just declared in slides. I always approach such negotiations with one basic principle: the partnership must be equal and beneficial for both sides at the same time, because only then does it live long and deliver real\u00a0results.<\/p>\n

When we come to any club, partner, or B2B client, we always emphasize that we have long-term intentions. We play the long game, carefully weighing every decision, every investment step, the launch of a new product, or the development of a separate direction. For us, it\u2019s important not just to sign a contract, but to build a sustainable cooperation model that creates value for both sides. And this partnership proves it: we are not just signing a new deal, we are moving into the second term of cooperation, under new conditions and for a longer period. The first contract was designed for three\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona: why this partnership works<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manel del R\u00edo, Managing Director at FC Barcelona and Volodymyr Nosov, President and Founder of W Group, which includes\u00a0WhiteBIT<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona is a media ecosystem with an audience of about half a billion people across all social networks and a team valuation of 5.6 billion dollars according<\/a> to Forbes. Each of the three million jerseys the club produces annually is a touchpoint with a real person in a real place. When you think about that scale, you understand what this partnership is really\u00a0about.<\/p>\n

When you walk into the meeting room and see that everything is ready, for the first time that day you can simply exhale. The agreements are lying on the table in two neat folders, and next to them is a symbolic jersey with the number 2030. At that moment, you truly feel that this is the result of enormous work by the entire company over the past year, not only the marketing team, but every person who was part of this\u00a0process.<\/p>\n

If we speak honestly about the personal dimension of this moment: I played football from an early age and have always loved\u00a0sports.<\/p>\n

And if back then someone had told me that one day I would walk into the central office of Barcelona, where players like Lamine Yamal, Ara\u00fajo, Raphinha, and Lewandowski sign contracts, and that on the same table there would be documents my team had been working on for almost a year, I would have taken it as a\u00a0joke.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even twenty years ago, at the start of my career, it would have been hard for me to believe that we would be negotiating with the management of FC Barcelona at this level. It is truly an emotional moment.<\/p>\n

But in work, it is important to be able to separate emotions from business goals. Outside of work, you can be a fan, celebrate victories, and \u043f\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0436\u0438\u0432\u0430\u0442\u044c defeats. In business, you have to look\u00a0wider.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I have somewhat unlearned how to watch football only as a\u00a0fan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When a team loses, I think not only about the sporting result, but also about what business opportunities a brand might lose if the team does not advance further in the Champions League or reach the final. Lost reach, brand metrics, international visibility: this is already a different level of perception of sports, where the fan side intersects with business responsibility.<\/p>\n

The lesson I learned before\u00a0WhiteBIT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I joined WhiteBIT, I worked at a company that was an official partner of Manchester United (AIG was on the front of the jerseys). It was there that I understood something I have considered fundamental ever\u00a0since:<\/p>\n

signing a contract is not the finish, it is the starting\u00a0shot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your brand becomes part of moments people remember for a lifetime: the final whistle, the winning goal, the atmosphere of the stands that no screen can fully convey. But very quickly it becomes clear that presence alone is not enough. What matters is not that you are seen, but what you do with that attention.<\/p>\n

Every marketer reading me should understand one thing: negotiating and extending a contract with a club of this level is only the beginning.<\/strong> After that, you must have a strong team, a clear activation strategy, and a huge number of ideas for integration. Because immediately after signing, you find yourself in the same ecosystem with Nike, Cupra, Spotify, and other international partners, each of whom knows how to work professionally with these assets and compete for the audience\u2019s attention. This is where the real game\u00a0begins.<\/p>\n

WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona Partnership photo<\/p>\n

What we give each\u00a0other<\/strong><\/p>\n

WhiteBIT, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Europe by traffic, brought technology, blockchain infrastructure, and an understanding of digital assets into this partnership. FC Barcelona brought something that cannot be conveyed through presentations and negotiations: the ability to work with a mass audience through emotion and build loyalty not through a product, but through identity. We explain to them how digital assets and blockchain infrastructure work. They show us how to work with an audience so that people stay with you for a long time. Two brands at one table with real mutual interest, and only this format makes a partnership truly sustainable.<\/p>\n

I say this not as a marketing thesis, but as an observation from real practice. A fan does not just buy a product, they believe in it, defend it, and carry it into the world without any additional incentives, because this product has become part of their identity. This is the level of engagement any brand would like to reproduce with its audience, and Barcelona has become a real teacher for us in this\u00a0matter.<\/p>\n

What remains after the pen is put\u00a0aside<\/strong><\/p>\n

The signing day is about twenty minutes with documents, pens, and photos. Then everyone leaves, and what everything was started for begins: daily work on creating real valuable content, integrating into the club ecosystem, building interaction with an audience that numbers hundreds of millions of people around the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

Five years ahead. And honestly, this is the part I like the\u00a0most.<\/strong><\/p>\n

P.S By the way, now on my desk lies that very pen with which the contract between WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona was\u00a0signed.<\/p>\n

The pen with which the contract between WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona was\u00a0signed<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes of the WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona partnership: one day I will remember for a long\u2026<\/a> was originally published in Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes of the WhiteBIT and FC Barcelona partnership: one day I will remember for a long\u00a0time Recently, I launched a series of posts One Day in the Life of a CMO on my LinkedIn, where I will talk about what work at this level actually looks like, without gloss, without pre-written phrases about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":157215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}